OTTAWA – A profanity filled song that aired on an Edmonton radio station’s morning show breached broadcasting codes, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) has ruled.
The CBSC investigated the episode of the Crash & Mars morning show on CKNO-FM (NOW! Radio, Edmonton) that aired on January 24, 2018. Just after 8:00 AM that day, the hosts were discussing “trashy wedding songs” and one mentioned an online video of a woman leaving her wedding to the song ‘Crazy Bitch’ by Buckcherry.
The hosts then commented that their co-host was trying to edit out all the f-words before playing the song. When the song was played, all but two instances of the f-word were edited out, prompting the hosts to joke that they were 90% successful, and that hopefully the audience would mistake the word “f*ck” for “rock”.
The CBSC received a complaint from a listener who was primarily concerned about the use of the word “bitch” in the song, noting that the station had made an effort to censor the f-words but left that one in. The station responded that the song is not in its usual playlist, but had been relevant to that day’s discussion.
The CBSC’s English-Language Panel examined the complaint under Clause 9(c) of the CAB Code of Ethics which relates to coarse and offensive language on radio. The Panel noted a previous CBSC decision on this song, in which it found that the word “bitch” was acceptable, and that the song could be played at any time of day as long as all f-words were edited out.
Given that the station failed to edit out all instances of the word “f*ck”, the station breached the code, reads the decision. The Panel also noted that the hosts had the opportunity to apologize for the coarse language following the song, but instead chose to make light of the situation.
